I've been making a new breakfast smoothie lately instead of having oatmeal or muesli. I'm loving it so I thought I'd share it with you. While initially it was my "oatmeal smoothie", for the last few days, I've been adding a green tinge to it - not from veggies, but from green tea, so now its my "green tinge" smoothie. Yes, another way to get green tea into my diet when I don't like the taste of green tea! And just a tinge of green as sometimes, I just don't fancy veggies for my breakfast!

Here the reasons for my ingredient selection:I use soy milk in this, as it has a higher protein level than other non-dairy milks. While I am definitely not one to say we need a lot of protein in our diets, it is good to have a little in every meal/snack. Almond milk, which I like a lot, only has 1g protein per cup, whereas soy milk has 9g per cup. I need about 45g a day so this smoothie provides about 15g in total - a third of my daily needs.

The sunchoke syrup - or as its called above, sunroot sweetener, is a relatively new product on the market and worth a try for its health benefits It is a prebiotic made from sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes. Prebiotics are functional foods that your "good" gut bacteria thrive on. Basically it is something that we can't digest ourselves, so it passes to the colon and, bacteria, particularly bifidobacteria just eat it up! They thrive and their numbers increase and that helps us thrive. Yacon syrup is a similar product but made from yacon root ( and is more expensive!). It is a syrup - even though its only made from sunchokes/yacons, so can be used as a sweetener. I don't think this smoothie needs sweetening actually, but I use it for its prebiotic component. 1 tbsp has 7g of fiber in it. Added to my flaxseed in this smoothie and other ingredients and I'm getting a total of 14g a fiber, just for breakfast.

Our lovely green nectarines are ripe on the tree right now so I've been swapping out the banana for them some mornings, so choose whatever fruit you have ripe right now. I actually prefer it with the nectarines - but I'm using the ones that fall on the ground so as not to waste the perfect ones. Yes, they are green - outside and in. Not sure what the varietal is but they are wonderful.

What's your morning smoothie right now with all this yummy fruit and veggies in abundance? Share your recipe.